Al-Qaida leader in Iraq captured during Mosul raid

The leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, Abu Ayyub al-Masri, has been captured in the northern city of Mosul, Iraqi officials said last night.

Al-Masri, also known as Abu Hamza al-Muhajir, was arrested during a police raid on Wednesday, a spokesman for the interior ministry told Iraqi television.

"The police raided this house and arrested him. During the primary investigation, he confessed that he is Abu Hamza al-Muhajir. A broader investigation of him is being conducted," he said.

Last week, Iraqi authorities reported that al-Masri had been killed by rival Sunni insurgents. There was no immediate comment from the US military last night, but if confirmed, the arrest would represent a major blow to al-Qaida in Iraq.

Little is known about the man who assumed command of the organisation after Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was killed in a US airstrike in June 2006. Neither Iraqi nor coalition forces had established his real identity. US officials said al-Masri trained as a bomb-maker before entering Iraq to set up the first al-Qaida cell in Baghdad.

News of the arrest came as UN aid officials in Iraq expressed concern for the plight of civilians caught up in fighting between Shia militiamen and US and Iraqi forces in Baghdad's Sadr City area, saying they needed swift access to food, water and medicines.

Hundreds of people have died and at least 6,000 have been displaced from Sadr City - a bastion of support for the militant Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and his Mahdi army - since the government of Nouri al-Maliki launched a controversial crackdown on Shia militias in March.

In the Jordanian capital, Amman, Dana Graber Ladek, of the International Organisation of Migration, said many civilians had been unable to leave "due to curfews and ... insecurity. We need that corridor opened to allow aid in."